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 Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2005 8:19 pm
Wrestling the awakened, longing bloodlust into submission, Crow let the knife fall to the floor with a clatter.
"Oh my god. What did I just..."
Running past Liam, ducking her head in shame, she pounded on the bathroom door.
"Rabid? Rabid, for the love of Ur, open up! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to - well, I did, but - oh, ishta, ishta, please, are you okay?"
She clawed at the door in panic, all hateful thoughts forgotten in her horrified fear for her friend. Turning on Liam frantically, she cringed as she noticed the look on his face.
"I...I just..." she tried to splutter, waving her hands around in useless apology.
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Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2005 8:23 pm
Rabid stood over the sink, an almost continous stream of blood running over her lower lip. She just stared at herself in the mirror as she slowly went paler and paler...and suddenly began to feel faint.
Liam grabbed Crow by the neck with his mechanically enhanced arm and held her up against the wall.
"I'd like to kill you right now," he said, his eyes wild and his voice horribly deep, "Sadly, that would screw Rabid up even more than she is now. You've actually been indirectly killing her for the last several weeks. Now, I gave you two minutes to explain what the Hell is going on and they're ever-so-quickly ticking by..."
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Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2005 8:38 pm
Despite the fact that Liam's grip was cutting off a lot of her air, Crow felt little fear.
You wanna know? she thought savagely, all concern evaporating again as she was caught up in the familiar pain.
Fine.
She let the stream of her memory open up to him. Memories of anguish at the realization she had been born as barter, of the Dead Queen, of the Amalgamated, of Julian falling to the ground, his face blank in shock as he touched the hilt of the knife through his heart...
You've turned up at a pretty nasty time, she said, narrating under the fast flowing surge of memories. She cared little if he understood what she showed him - she wanted to dump it, all of it, and he'd volunteered to listen and see. She gave a rasping breath and shuddered as she felt consciousness slipping.
I was born to be a slave to THIS thing- there was a brief, flashing memory of a white fire, its voice a thousand screaming voices howling from the contorted faces that flickered in it - And Julian and Rabid came to get me. They'd enslaved him, too - he turned again at the end, and Rabid had to...had to...oh, God, I've killed her!
Tears welled up for the thousandth time, burning her eyes as they blurred her already fogging vision.
I've lost everything. Go ahead and kill me - just do it right and burn me when it's done, or I'll be up and kicking again in no time.
The last thought was extremely bitter. As Crow gasped for breath, struggling in useless fury, her hands clenched 'round Liam's wrist, she looked at the clawed-up bathroom door, trying to imagine what she had done to her friend.
Would you like to see how flawed I really am? she asked Liam, her gasps for air transmuting into halting, hysterical laughs.
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Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2005 8:44 pm
Liam's head lolled slightly at the sudden rush of information, but he quickly shook it to clear it.
"I know what you are, m'friend," he brushed let Crow down and brushed himself off, suddenly completely calm, "I'm actually surprised you didn't claw my eyes out. Sorry about the...strangulation. All an act. Try to calm down, hm? Now, about Julian..."
He paused for a moment, trying to figure things out. Nobody wanted to be a soulless drone, and nobody wanted to lose a brother...but he'd seen what sudden rebirth could do to a person.
"If he was freed from this...evil soul-pact of doom...eurgh. Say that, hypothetically, I could bring him back here. Would things be alright?"
He gave a worried glance toward the bathroom door. They didn't have much time before her body rejected all of its own blood. She'd been determined to starve herself to death, though, and it was quite possible that she would get her wish.
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Posted: Fri Dec 16, 2005 9:08 pm
Giving a rattling cough and rubbing her throat, she wondered vaguely if anything had been crushed.
"You know what I...?" she began to ask, before the whole of Liam's words hit her. Gasping for air, she flailed around in astonished excitement.
"Of course it'd be alright! Every day knowing he's there in my place is torture! What ever you gotta do, do it - kill me if you want, tear out my soul, whatever." she said, grabbing him by the shirt, this newfound hope making her dizzy with distrusting fear and terrible, aching want.
She looked him straight in the eye, terrified Liam was toying with her.
"You can help him? You can get him out of there?"
She started as his gaze turned towards the door, and she scrabbled back towards it. Pounding on the door hard, she twisted at the knob.
"Rabid? Rabid, please, I'm sorry - open the door!"
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Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2005 7:46 am
"She's not going to come out," Liam said seriously, "and we need to hurry, if we're going to do this." He grabbed Crow by the arm and dragged her over to the floor in front of the couch. He removed Chao's knife from his uniform pocket and cut a deep mark in the floor. He was nervous...horribly nervous. He'd never done a long-distance rebirth before.
Well, there was a first time for everything, right?
"How tall is this brother of yours?"
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Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2005 1:01 pm
"Um... 'bout six foot three. Are - are you gonna do this now?" Crow said, wringing her hands in anxiety.
"Just....just be careful, please."
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Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2005 1:07 pm
Liam crawled across the floor, rougly measuring 6 feet and 3 inches from the initial mark. He jabbed the knife into the floor again, and then moved between the 2 gashes.
"Of course," he said as he began to slowly spin around, using the points as the guidelines for a large circle, "I'll be as careful as possible while ripping your brother from his body and pulling him through Rabid's floor."
He finished the circle and began working on a star, creating a large pentacle.
"Kindly tell me your brother's full name. Spell it, if you would."
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Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2005 1:15 pm
"Rip him...uh, name. Right. Birth name's Nahalthes Pakuwo Haderka - but the name he uses is Julian Haedermann."
Torn between anxiety for what was about to happen to her brother and what Rabid was going through in the bathroom, Crow fidgeted and bit at her nails.
"Will Rabid be okay? I swear, I didn't mean hurt her like that. Well, I kinda did, but..."
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Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2005 1:24 pm
"Just shut up," Liam snapped. After all...his "act" had only been as such for the last couple of seconds, "Hopefully your brother can snap her out of it. She seems real torn up about him for...one reason or another." He mumbled some as he carved Julian's birth name in Vavvian into the centre of the pentacle. He stopped, leaned back to reread what he'd written, and then turned to Crow.
"Would you be willing to give up a small portion of your soul to save him?" he asked and pulled 3 small glass balls from an inner pocket of his uniform, "The most I can take without making a difference is a third. They grow back, too. Kind of like hair."
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Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2005 1:34 pm
"Take whatever you need." There was no fear in her voice - only steely determination.
But what if it changes him like it did me? Crow thought, instantly hoping Liam hadn't heard her.
"C'mon - let's get it over with!" she said quickly and loudly, to cover her apprehension.
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Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2005 1:37 pm
Liam actually heard her quite well, but decided to ignore it and explain later. He took one of the small glass balls and tapped it against the floor twice, quickly. It slid open and he opened his mouth slightly, placing the orb before it. Almost immediately, tendrils of black smoke entered the ball. Once enough had apparently entered, the glass sphere slid shut again, turning pitch black. He reapeated this process another time and watched as the vision in his left eye when black.
He gently tapped the final sphere on the floor and held it in front of Crow's face.
"Kindly open your mouth."
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Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2005 1:43 pm
Crow watched the process in fascination before opening her mouth obediently.
Julian.
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Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2005 1:57 pm
Liam watched with clearing eyes as the small portion of Crow's soul filled the orb. After it snapped shut, he gently placed the 3 balls on the floor.
"Alright," he inhaled sharply as he slashed his wrist and began pouring his blood over the pentacle, "I don't know where to start, so I'm going to...ow...ramble. Your brother's soul is going to stay with the big baddies o' doom. In fact, so is his body...bloody hell. All they'll be left with is the literal form of a zombie. No personality left. No breach of contract. You see, souls don't define personality. Spirits do. In fact, it can be refuted that brains don't do jack. Anyway, we're going to be removing your brother's spirit from his body and bringing it here. My blood'll give him a physical form, and he can have our soul so said form doesn't collapse on him."
The young man paused to pull a small vial of blood from the inside of his uniform and pour it over the wound he'd made.
"You don't have to worry about too much, my dear," he continued as the gash healed and he began writing strange symbols into the large pool of blood on the floor, "Your brother won't end up posessed. He may or may not gain...small flaws in physical appearence. First girl I tried this on got my eyes. He may get...well...we can hope he doesn't acquire any of your unnatural physical features."
He shot a worried glance at the bathroom door before drawing an upside-down cross on Crow's forehead via his blood.
"Stand back," he said and rolled up his sleeves, "It's going to get a bit messy."
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Posted: Sat Dec 17, 2005 2:14 pm
Nodding her head as though she understood everything Liam told her, Crow began to hyperventilate in nervousness.
Please be okay please please please-
---
"Leave me ALONE, I said!"
"Thou must rest, master - the lords shan't be pleased if you take ill again - "
Turning on Jeddeth in exasperated anger, wanting more than anything to rip its mask off and give it a decent sucker-punch in its oversized mouth, Julian's retort turned into a rattling cough. He doubled over, wheezing and coughing wetly, before straightening and continuing as though he hadn't been interrupted.
"I keep 'taking ill' because I've got freakin' fire of evil possessing me and hollowing me out every god-damn day!" he snapped, ignoring the coppery taste of blood in his mouth.
Always dying, never resting. That's what Jeddeth had called his condition.
Ah, Crow, Nahalethe, I miss you.
---
Shivering in fear and hope, Crow watched Liam work.
"Please, let it work," she said.
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